Bidspirit auction | Łódź Almanac – Important Publication

Łódź Almanac – Important Publication Marking the 25th Anniversary of the Łódź Branch of the Workmen’s Circle – New York, 1934 – Only Edition - ”לאדזשער אלמאנאך – ארויסגעגעבן לכבוד דעם 25־יעריקן יוביליי פון לאדזשער ברענטש 324, ארבעטער רינג, ניו־יארק, 1909–1934” [Łódź Almanac – Published in Honor of the 25th Anniversary of Łódź Branch No. 324 of the Workmen’s Circle]. New York, 1934. Yiddish. Cover illustration by Arthur Szyk. A comprehensive historical almanac published by Łódź Branch No. 324 of the Workmen’s Circle in New York to mark the 25th anniversary of its founding. The book was intended to document both the history of the Jewish community of Łódź and the world of emigrants from the city who settled in the United States and organized within the Jewish labor movement. Published in 1934, on the eve of the destruction of Jewish Łódź, its photographs, names, recollections, and descriptions subsequently acquired exceptional documentary significance. Much of the world portrayed in its pages – the institutions, newspapers, organizations, and personalities of the great Jewish community of Łódź – disappeared in the Holocaust. The title page features an early work by the renowned Jewish artist Arthur Szyk, a native of Łódź. The illustration depicts the revolutionary struggle in the city in 1905: Jewish workers and insurgents manning a barricade in the streets of Łódź, against a background of city buildings and factory smokestacks. At the bottom of the illustration is a dedication in French in which Szyk refers to Łódź as his native city and to the image as a childhood memory of the “heroic struggle against the oppressor” in 1905. The almanac is, in effect, a history of Jewish Łódź printed only five years before the outbreak of World War II. Wide-ranging in scope, it includes articles on the origins and development of Łódź, its Jewish community and institutions, synagogues, cultural life and press, the labor movement, the city’s social and political struggles, the Revolution of 1905, as well as personal recollections by former residents of Łódź. It is one of the major works devoted to Łódź published before the appearance of the post-Holocaust memorial books and constitutes an important source for the study of the Jewish community of Łódź that was later destroyed. Alongside the history of Łódź, the book also documents the community of Łódź immigrants in New York. It includes photographs of members and activists, greetings from members of the community, and numerous advertisements for Jewish businesses in New York. The Arbeter Ring / Workmen’s Circle was one of the principal organizations of the Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant community in the United States. Its branches were often organized around members’ countries and cities of origin, and Branch 324 brought together immigrants from Łódź. 176 pages. Photographs, illustrations, and advertisements. Ex-library copy. Loss to the corner of the title page. Wear to binding. Fair–good condition.